August 17 : What's the "vacation working"?

In Japan, we have the summer vacation at the middle of August. Most of workers also tend to take holidays. Vacation, so I said, but that's not so big deal. It's just a week or so. I heard that Europeans take a double or triple weeks holiday in summer. I can't believe it. But I bet Europeans also can't believe it. Only a week? Do you still have the slavery system? ...Well, that might be a funny theme, but on this article, it's not the purpose to satire the Japanese labor productivity. On the contrary, I want to talk about working even on such a vacation term.

This time, I spent my summer vacation like this.

4 days : Home town trip in Tottori
2 days : Working at Sapporo
3 days : Spent holiday at Sapporo

What's the two days working in between? That's the point. I had two options. Whether to work or not. There's no need to work. Even if I didn't work, it's no matter at all. But I woke up in the morning, shaved, rode the train, and got to my office. Most of people might feel like terrible to work on the vacation, but as of me, the situation is different.

Did you ever went to the office in the vacation? I like its unusual atmosphere. Empty train, empty street, empty office. That's very comfortable, much more feel nice than the packed train, packed street, packed office. Besides, there's no boss, nor subordinate, nor colleague. No call, no mail, no chats. No demanding consulting, imminent meetings! You may ask, then what the hell you do, why you came to work? There's a thing what I want to do which I couldn't in usual working days.

I made two presentation documents at this "vacation working". One was for my project, and the other was for the in-house seminar. They needed an energy and time to build up, but it's not easy to spare my energy and time in usual days. Because, in usual days, we have to cope with lot of meetings, mails, chats, immediate orders and unexpected changes. The enegy and time are used not for me, but for them. Still, it's OK as long as I could be useful. But, we all need the thing for us ourselves. A thing which makes us fun. Not the thing which must be done, but a thing which we want to do. So I took a plenty of time to made two documents. Thought slower, longer. Research more carefully, brushed the design more deeply. Nobody cut in, nothing disturbed. I kind of felt to melting into one. I was the document, and the document was me myself. What a feeling. It never occurred in the usual work day. That's the "vacation working"

Satisfaction of work might depend on the balance on the things have to be done and the things want to do. If you want to feel such a strange feeling, try it out!